In an avionics network, such as an ARNIC 664 network, the simultaneous arrival of transmitted packets at network switches can cause a problem. Accordingly, network switches have to be designed to handle large peak ingress loads. Large peak ingress loads will result even with the A664 specified Virtual Link (VL) Bandwidth Allocation Gap (BAG) limiting. This is because the BAG limits only on a VL basis and multiple VLs from multiple ports can arrive at the network switch ports simultaneously. Additionally, multiple different VLs can be transmitted with a minimum inter-frame gap, stacking up multiple VL messages from a single port. One effect on the switch is that larger internal memories are required to buffer the peak condition to minimize the possibility of data loss. Another effect is increased jitter of traffic through the switch which creates a large deterministic latency bound. With the next generation of network designs currently under consideration, the giga-bit speeds of the ports will compound these matters further such that latency and memory size will have even larger bounds.
For the reasons stated above and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art for a method of effectively and efficiently handling the simultaneous arrival of transmitted packets at a switch.